The great war started 100 years ago and towards the end of that war, a flu pandemic caused about 50 million deaths worldwide; far more than the deaths from combat casualties in the World War, killing an estimated 3 to 6% of the world's population and over 20% of some remote communities.

John Mathews, Honorary Professorial Fellow at University of Melbourne, Australia explains how the Great War exacerbated the spread of the pandemic through increased global travel and the confinement of soldiers in close proximity in army camps, barracks, troop-ships and trench dugouts:

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Two of my family who had emigrated to Canada returned to fight , survived the fighting only to die on the way home. Not sure how you could stop people moving around after the war was over but might have reduced the death toll.

With modern transport infections can easily be exchanged and travel around the world in hours rather than weeks or months.